October 1, 2007 - Team Ninja leader Tomonobu Itagaki let Ninja Gaiden II speak for itself at Microsoft's pre Tokyo Game Show press conference last month, as he unveiled the game through a live ten minute play demonstration that reportedly left the members of the press nearest the stage with blood stains. The same day of the demonstration, Itagaki sat down with the editors of Famitsu Xbox 360 to delve into specifics regarding the highly anticipated sequel.

Full development on Ninja Gaiden 2 started immediately after the end of Dead or Alive 4's development, Itagaki disclosed to the magazine. Even as DOA4's development cycle neared its end, the Team Ninja staff was doing some work on Ninja Gaiden 2 in the background.

Reflecting on the original title, Itagaki noted that while many praised it, he personally felt that it was released with many areas that still needed fixing. These areas weren't implemented due to time and system power constraints. With Ninja Gaiden 2, Itagaki feels that Team Ninja is now able to address these issues.

And just how many areas of improvement are we looking at? Itagaki feels that the difference between Ninja Gaiden and Ninja Gaiden 2 is similar to the difference between Dead or Alive 1 and its sequel. If you've never played the original DOA, you'll have to take our word for it: Team Ninja went in a notably different direction for part 2.

The core gameplay seems to be undergoing a few changes. "Whether or not Hayabusa is strong is up to the player," said Itagaki to the magazine. "This time, the enemies will once again really come at Hayabusa with the intention of killing him. However, this time, while the last game was defense based, we'd like to make this one a bit more on the offensive side."

One of the biggest improvements hinted at in the demonstration was of a simplified weapon selection system that allows you to switch between weapons without going into a menu. Itagaki made it clear to Famitsu, however, that players will not be able to switch between weapons on the fly, as this would change the game dramatically. This seems to suggest that you won't be incorporating weapon changes into combos.

Itagaki also touched up on the sequel's mysterious auto health recovery system. Hayabusa's health recovers automatically as you play, although not all the way to its max level. As reason for including this feature, Itagaki joked that he was tired of seeing health items scattered about game worlds. He also feels that having the game automatically recover for the player doesn't change the gameplay all that much from having players purchase and stock up on recovery items.

The original's camera system was an area of complaint for some players. Team Ninja appears to be spending quite some time on the camera system for the sequel. The up and down camera movement has been "considerably redone," Itagaki noted. He also made note of the game's dynamic camera work as something that's taking up valuable development time.

As a specific example of the changes to the camera system, Itagaki brought up the situation where Hayabusa opens a door. In the first game, the game would switch to a view of Hayabusa's front. In Ninja Gaiden 2, rather than a sudden jump in angle, the transition will be smooth.

During the play session at the press conference, the game's director did not once use the R trigger to reset the camera. All camera movements during the demonstration were done automatically by the game. This was done, according to Itagaki, to let the viewers get a better look at the game. He feels that there's a difference between a camera that works for players and a camera that works for those watching the game, so a manual camera will be included in the game.

The Japanese genre for the game, in case you're not aware, is "Violence Action." Regarding the impressive level of violence shown during the play demonstration, Itagaki feels that sex and violence are two areas that are widely desired in entertainment, and that while DOAX takes care of the former, Ninja Gaiden 2 will do even more for the latter. Famitsu 360 suggested to Itagaki that the game may get a Z rating, which is the rating that games like Grand Theft Auto get in Japan. "We're making it with that intention," replied Itagaki.

With all the blood and body parts flying about, you'll be happy to know that Team Ninja is using a physics engine to make everything move realistically. This engine was developed in-house. The team originally considered using the Havok engine. However, while Itagaki feels that this engine might be great for first person shooter games, in a high speed 60 frames per second action game, it's difficult to get adequate performance.

It's unfortunate that we didn't get to sample Ninja Gaiden II for ourselves at the Tokyo Game Show. What we saw during the live demonstration looked far along, however, so the wait for some hands-on time with the world's first "violence action" game hopefully won't be too far off.

I don't think we can trust him when he says NGII will have the same change DOA had from 1 to 2. That was a big change. He said the same thing with DOAX2 but that was pretty much the same.

"Regarding the impressive level of violence shown during the play demonstration, Itagaki feels that sex and violence are two areas that are widely desired in entertainment, and that while DOAX takes care of the former, Ninja Gaiden 2 will do even more for the latter. Famitsu 360 suggested to Itagaki that the game may get a Z rating, which is the rating that games like Grand Theft Auto get in Japan. "We're making it with that intention," replied Itagaki."